


These Faults of Mine

by Jellybeanzrul



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Depression, Foster Care, Heed the tags my dudes, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Not kidding, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Pretty graphic suicide attempt, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, not graphic like gorey but it's big sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23288605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellybeanzrul/pseuds/Jellybeanzrul
Summary: Breathe in for 4 seconds.Hold it for 7.Breathe out for 8 seconds.Repeat.Keith inwardly cringes as the smell of pollution fills his senses. Between that, the freezing wind, and stray car horns that keep roaring in his ears, it seems like a pretty shitty way to go out. Why did the only bridge in this town have to be a highway?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	These Faults of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Graphic suicide attempt, graphic depictions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, Keith's head is not a nice place to be you guys. Please please please be careful reading this, do not put yourself in a bad position.
> 
> That being said, this is my first fic on Ao3, not the most positive way to enter the fandom I know, but I needed to vent. Have mercy on me.

_ Breathe in for 4 seconds. _

_ Hold it for 7. _

_ Breathe out for 8 seconds. _

_ Repeat. _

Keith inwardly cringes as the smell of pollution fills his senses. Between that, the freezing wind, and stray car horns that keep roaring in his ears, it seems like a pretty shitty way to go out. Of all the places, he chose a highway. Why did the only bridge in this town have to be a highway?

He closes his eyes and breathes again.

_ 4. _

_ 7. _

_ 8. _

_ Repeat. _

When he opens his eyes again, he’s standing on the ledge, looking down at the raging river below him. He can almost hear the sound of rushing water over the blaring noises of the highway at his back. It’s peaceful almost, two worlds so close to each other yet so starkly different. Peering down at the waves, he can see the white foam that materializes against the rocks, and it reminds him of the charcoal smudges in his sketchbook. It reminds him of days sprawled out on a snow colored fuzzy carpet in a warm house, with a stuffed hippo tucked between his knees and a brilliant smile on his face. It reminds him of the streak of white in his foster mom’s hair, and the gleaming teeth of his foster brother’s smile.

_ Stop it,  _ he chides,  _ they’re gone. There’s nothing you can do, you did it to yourself. _

Blame, guilt; that seems to be a recurring thought in his head lately. It’s his fault his foster mom’s eyes are gray and empty, his fault the house feels so vacant and tense, his fault Shiro doesn’t bring friends home anymore, his fault Shiro is scared to approach him, his fault his foster mom is so lost and confused, his fault for the scars on his back, his fault for the cuts on his wrist, his fault for the fog in his mind, his fault for the fake smiles, his fault his fault his fault his fault his-

It doesn’t matter anymore.

This high up, the taste of death so near, nothing matters. Not his past. Not his family. Not his life. Nothing at all. It doesn’t matter, it will all be gone in an instant.

All his years of being a fuck up, a burden to those around him, it will all be gone. They won’t have to deal with him anymore. It’s then, when he’s teetering on the edge of a 130 foot tall bridge, that he’s violently reminded again of all the people whose lives he’s interfered with.

**~**

_ He’s six, 3 months after his dad died in a fire. An older couple in their fifties takes him in. It’s good for a while, though the sting of loss still plagues him like a disease. It isn’t long before the elderly woman dies of a stroke, and the husband is so lost in his own thoughts he turns Keith over to the agency. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ A month later a sultry mom takes him in for the check from the government. Her husband is never home. Keith stays in his room to avoid the glares he receives when he goes to the kitchen to eat. They give him back. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ He’s seven and sent to live with an unreluctant distant aunt. She doesn’t want him. She despises him. He’s given back. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ Glass shards in his arm, cigarette burns on his back, the stench of alcohol clinging to his hair. He’s eight and knows what the sting of an adult’s hand on his body feels like, knows the terror of having beer bottles thrown at you for speaking out of turn. He’s nine and flinches at the sound of a door closing for fear of what steps through the door. He’s ten and knows the burn of a belt lashed on his exposed flesh. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ He’s ten still and goes back to the foster home as a disciplinary case. He’s belittled, he’s shoved, he’s fending for himself. He retaliates. He throws punches more than he eats. He tries to run away and gets brought back, having been deemed, “problematic.” He succumbs to the raging thoughts in his head and the harsh words around him. He rams himself into walls, screams until his voice is raw, puts his mother’s knife to use on his own skin. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ A nice nurse and her wife take him in a year later. They don’t know what to do with him. He’s quiet and unresponsive. They barely get him to eat. They tell him they know someone who can help him a little better than they can. And so he ends up living with Dr. Shirogane and her son Takashi. _

Despite his wishes, Keith smiles, tears slowly forming in his eyes, as the good memories he had with the family before he fucked it up start coming back. Shiro was 14 and Keith was 12 when he started living with them. Dr. Shirogane insisted he called her, “Mom,” and he tried to for a while, but he finally settled on “Ms. Shirogane.” Shiro’s dad died in a car accident a couple years before, and it’d just been the two of them for a while before they took in Keith. Ms. Shirogane enrolled him in the same school as Shiro, he’s still quiet, and he only accepts things that are given to him, he never asks. Things were stagnant for a while, until one day, Shiro walked in on Keith with a razor blade pressed to his skin, tears on his face and blood coating the bathroom floor.

“ _ Keith _ ,  _ what-?”  _ he whispered incredulously.

“Sh-Shiro-” croaked Keith from his place on the floor, eyes wide with shock. “I did-didn’t mean for you to- you weren’t supposed to... I’m so-sorry,” he sobbed.

Shiro stepped further into the bathroom, reaching for his little brother, “Keith it’s...” at the movement, Keith flinched, moving closer to the wall.

“No! Don’t- I didn’t mean-” At that, Shiro paused, and ignoring his pounding heart he breathed out,

“Keith, I’m not mad. You need to calm down buddy, it’s going to be okay.” Keith gulped, cradling his bleeding arm with a shaking hand.

“Shiro I-”

“Keith it’s alright, I’m not going to hurt you, I want to help. Let me help you okay? I won’t tell mom but you need to let me help you, you’re bleeding.” Shiro watched carefully as Keith took a breath and hesitantly nodded his head.

“Okay.”

From then on he and Shiro were close. Shiro helped him warm up around his mom, dispersing some of the mistrust he had around adults. They start becoming like a real family, going to the park every weekend, baking cookies, having family movie nights. Keith is still quiet, but it starts to get a little easier around them. He starts helping out with dinner, and isn’t scared to ask for food. Conversations pick up at the dinner table, and he can respond without fear of being punished. He starts getting acclimated to touch, and hugs his mom and brother, the first time he’d hugged someone since his dad died. Things are well for the next two years.

But the raging thoughts in his mind don’t disappear. It’s one of the worse days where his head is so much of a mess that he can’t hear Shiro open the door to his room that everything changes.

He was in high school then, a freshman. It’s hard. No one wanted to keep him around. He couldn't make friends. Halfway through the year he started cutting again. Getting harassed at school then coming home to a quiet house with oblivious questions of how his day went was too much. With every thin line of blood, he saw a belt come down on his back, a bottle thrown at his head, a punch thrown at his face.

But it’s so much worse than that. With every hit, every cut, he realizes he deserves it. All the indifferent stares and silent conversations have gotten him nowhere. He deserved what he got. He deserves the pain. He should’ve just stayed with the man from before. These surface cuts don’t do any justice for everything he’s done. These people have no clue how much of a fuck up he is, it won’t be long before he fucks up their lives too. They’ve been putting up with him for so long, he’s making them suffer. He might as well be punished now, make deeper cuts. More and more, slash after slash, tear after tear, deep deep deep. He deserves it, they don’t love him, he deserves it, it’s his fault, his fault, his fault, his fault-

His thoughts are interrupted by shouting from his bedroom door. He tries to look up and see who it was but everything is hazy. His head is lying on his bed, when did that happen? He can’t feel his blade in his hands anymore, muffled words are being thrown around, he can’t register what they’re saying until they’re right in his ear.

“ _ -eith?! Keith?! _ ” Someone lifts his head off the bed and leans it against something warm and solid.

“... Kashi?” he manages to squeeze out.

“ _ Keith…-nk god... open! Don’t-! _ ” A door being closed from the kitchen and heels slamming on tile were the last thing Keith heard before his eyes rolled back in his head and everything went black.

**~**

The medical visit afterwards was horrible. Waking up in a different place, covered in bandages, is truly terrifying. He sits through muted conversations. Sits through gentle prodding. Sits through the pitying stares. Sits through the list of meds they want to give him.

It isn’t until the car ride afterwards, medicine bottles clutched in his grip, that the haze in his mind lifts just enough to process Shiro’s attempted apology.

“It’s fine, Shiro.”

“No it isn’t, you’re clearly upset about this but I’m worried about you and I didn’t know what else to do-”

“I said it’s  _ fine _ .”

When they get back to the house, Keith silently returns to his room and tries to ignore the sounds of his brother’s sobs as his mother hugs him and whispers reassurances in his ear.

**~** ****

Their relationship is never the same. After coming home from school, they’ll be lucky if Keith gives more than a one word answer to anything he’s asked. He stays inside, and only leaves his bed to do school work, shower, or eat. Even then, it takes Shiro’s insistence that he eats to get him to go downstairs.

“I smell spaghetti down there, reckon we go get some?” Shiro says one day, popping into Keith’s room to try and instigate conversation.

“Okay,” is his response, it’s always his response.

This is how it is for the next two years.

This is how Keith ends up where he is right now, alone, though he supposes it was always this way. But today is the day. It seemed like just an ordinary day, nothing out of the norm. For Keith though, today is the day it ends. Today is the day he fixes things. Today is the day he makes up for being such a stain on his brother’s conscience, and makes up for all the stress he’s caused his mother.

Nothing caused him to pick this day specifically. It had been a normal day at school. He’d been sitting at his table in the cafeteria when a large group of rowdy teens passed by him. His brother’s friends. There was his brother, smiling, laughing, having a good time. Didn’t Keith have that with him at some point? Wasn’t there a time when he made his brother smile like that? Did he ever have that?

_ If I did, I didn’t deserve it _ , he had thought solemnly. He realizes, he  _ had  _ felt that way at one point, so unabashedly happy, without a care in the world. His dad, he had this with his dad. But just like he lost his father, he lost that too. Somewhere along the way, it had drained out of him, and he can never get it back. His life is so monotonous. If he can never be that happy again, then what’s the point? Does he even have anything to look forward to in the future? He wants Shiro to come home and be happy again, he wants his mother to regain the bright aura she once had. He wants the house to feel lived in again.  _ It’s his fault his mum’s eyes are gray and empty, his fault the house feels so empty and tense, his fault Shiro doesn’t bring friends home anymore, his fault Shio is scared to approach him, his fault his mum is so lost and confused, his fault for the scars on his back, his fault for the cuts on his wrist, his fault for the clouds in his mind, his fault for the fake smiles, his fault his fault his fault his fault his fault  _ **_his his his_ ** _. _

And so he calmly walked out of the cafeteria and took a stroll to Queensboro bridge.

Here he is, gazing out at the beautiful river below him, listening to the cars, smelling the pollution. Isn’t it funny how he’s only now paying attention to all that’s around him, he couldn’t appreciate it during life. This will be the last time he can hear such things, the last time he can embrace life. He really hasn’t appreciated it, life. He hasn’t appreciated the streets teeming with life all around him. He hasn’t appreciated the smiles of those around him, filed with the glee of being alive. He hasn’t appreciated the comfort of cool tears falling down his face. He hasn’t appreciated the gentle touches on his shoulder, and the soft questions of how he’s doing. He hasn’t appreciated his mother. He hasn’t appreciated his brother.

_ God they’re going to think it’s their fault, it was never their fault. Fuck, I’ve dealt them so much pain, they’re so much better without me here. They’ll be so grateful once I’m gone. It’ll get better for them, soon. It’s almost better, just a little more time. I’m almost gone don’t worry. I’m almost gone. I’m almost gone. _

He takes a step, and falls.

**~**

_ A shock.  _

_ Agony tearing through him.  _

_ Cold. _

_ It's so cold. _

_ It hurts. God it hurts so much. _

_ He can feel the darkness enveloping him, filling his lungs, suffocating him. _

_ He feels a tug, and suddenly there’s nothing. _

_ There are muffled noises all around him.  _

_ He thinks he hears his father’s voice. _

_ He wants to scream out, he wants to scream for his Pa. _

_ I’m here Pa. I’m coming home. _

**~**

Warmth is the first thing that Keith feels as he slowly opens his tired eyes and is met with a blinding light directly in his sight.

_ Light? What? _ His ears are ringing. His head hurts. He’s hot, sweaty, and his chest aches. Whatever he’s laying on won’t stop moving and it’s making him dizzy.

_ If this is the afterlife it’s pretty shitty. _ He attempts to open his eyes again, looking in a different direction this time. He spots an unfamiliar color, a moving blob of sky blue. He thinks he hears something shuffle beside him, followed by a shout. He isn’t sure, his ears feel like they’re full of cotton, his head feels like lead. He decides that whatever it was can wait, and closes his eyes again.

When he wakes a second time, he is a little more conscious, and his bed doesn’t seem to be moving as much.

_ Wait, bed? _

Groggily, he opens his eyes to white. Just white. It’s everywhere. He blinks. White sheets, white ceiling, white desk, white… hair?

He draws in a shaky breath.  _ Shiro. _

His foster brother is sitting in a chair pulled up to the edge of his bed, his head in his arms resting on the bed, fast asleep. At the sight of his brother, it all comes crashing back to him. 

He’s in a hospital. 

He’s breathing. 

Why? Why is he still alive? He should be dead, he wanted to be dead! And yet he’s here, right back where he started. He somehow managed to fuck up dying too, in adition to everything else. His eyes start to burn.

_ No no no no no, don’t cry here. Don’t you dare cry here. _

He can’t stop himself though and tears escape against his will. He just wanted to fix things, he just wanted to make life better for Shiro and his mum, he just wanted to finally rid them of his burden, and he can’t even do that. When will he ever stop being a failure.

He must have jostled Shiro by accident because he slowly started to wake, groaning in the process. He lifts his head and immediately notices Keith’s distress, moving to his side.

“Hey hey hey hey Keith, it’s alright shhhh. It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says, placing his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith jerks away.

“No it isn’t Shiro!” God his voice is a wreck. Shiro flinches, saying quietly,

“Why Keith? Why didn’t you ever tell anyone it wasn’t okay?” He’s pleading now, desperate to help his baby brother.

“No one asked, Shiro.”

**~**

It isn’t until after Shiro leaves and the doctors come back in with Ms. Shirogane that he learns how he’s still alive. Someone saw him on the shoreline and called 911, who then called a passing ferry to scoop him up and rush him to the ER.  _ A miracle _ , they say,  _ you’re lucky they were so close. _

A miracle isn’t the word he likes to use.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I had this sitting in my drive as "it's sad boi hours lmao" for the longest time haha.


End file.
